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Inked Ghosts

I was 11.

A little younger than some of my classmates; and imaginarily less “attractive” than girls who had convex flesh bracing their nipples, or the area between their waists and legs. That was all that mattered then. How old you were. How much fawning attention of the opposite sex you got. How well you could dance. How many people were in your “crew”, the weight of your social traction. Your grades were those things that made your parents buy the things you wanted. Or caused them to compare you to your siblings and other kids.

I was only 11.

And all I had were an interesting mind, good grades, and the ability to strings words and sentences together pretty enviably. So one day I wrote. But it wasn’t what they wanted to read, so they tore it. They also made fun of me. Dancing round me in circles, they chanted. And chanted. Till days became nights which faded into weeks. Till my nights became silent sobs into unyielding cotton sheets.

 

I was just 11.

And I’d finished writing two novels. Short stories, we would now call them. The unpublished beginning of dreams, nightmares, fantasies and frustrations. They became the last novels I ended. Books I’ld write in future became placations. The half-loaf cliché pronounces to be better than none.

 

One day Beau said writing owns me.
I kept quiet. Hated how close he’d hit home. I’d  tried occupying life with other things, to spend time not writing the novel in my head. So I can just stay with my articles and story pieces. The things that don’t cause stirs. That don’t cause anyone to sing my name in lines of derisive chants. That don’t shed pain in bunched pillows…

barton_fink-typewriter1A chapter a day. That’s today’s resolution.

And this is for you like me, with great dreams and haunting fears. Here’s my challenge to us both. That we do not live in fearsome shadows of adolescent mishaps. Because life needs us. It needs our dreams and our tales to truly be beautiful. To reach inked fingers and widen a stranger’s view. To widen their lips till their teeth flash at the sky, soothe their pains, resonate with their spirit… Name your fear and the shadows holding you back. Life is short. Too darn short to not live your dream, and there’s  no better time to start than today.

 

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Humans of Abeokuta Episode 4

I was the little figure on the road with shoes in her left hand, a handbag in her right hand, walking almost lifeless, the sun just over her shoulder as it sunk beneath the horizon.  Bad boys whispered dark promises in my ears and my lower lip was grazed by my teeth, cheeks lifting in decadent smiles.

“I’m an addict

Every piece of your body I gotta have it

I’m strung out, so far gone

Girl you’re in my veins…”

Something tapped me; a rude intrusion of nirvana. I spun around in broken motions, startled yet too weak to execute a smooth turn. A young male smiled awkwardly behind me, clothed in sagged tight jeans, a tee-shirt, fashion glasses, and a punky haircut. I lifted my left hand to press the pause button by the side of my headphones, shoes taking advantage of the position to kiss my cheeks. Mr. Awkward Smile (MAS) didn’t say anything so I asked what he wanted.
barefeet-jeans.jpgMAS: “You are beautiful”
Me: *Quirks eyebrows quizzically*
MAS: “I’m Kunle. I study at Moshood Abiola Polythecnic. I’ll like to get to know you better. We can be friends. I think…”
Me: “Why?”
MAS: “Why? You asked…”
Me: “There are shoes in my hands and headphones over my ears. And you want to toast me right now. Are you for real?”
MAS: “Sister, I…”
Me: *Looks harder at his too-tight jeans. Shakes tired head*
“Today is not the day. And I am not the one”
*Reaches up to press the play button, continues trudge down the hill; a lone swaying silhouette in the darkening, breezy evening*

How Her Heart Breaks

You often ponder how the female heart breaks? I chose to break it down.

1. Your classic macho self gets mushy. You say we’re the only akara in your frying pan, only cockroach in your cupboard, only sugar in your tea, only rash in your butt. We carry sunshine in our eyes so we light up your otherwise gloomy life. Matter of fact, we’re your oxygen and you can’t breathe without us! Aaaw Poor you. We don’t want you to die so we say yes. And maybe we’re all blushes, twiddling fingers and giggles but that’s not the point. This is the priming stage. We’re all blossoms here.

2. You change our world. Literally. Make our world before you seem like a lackluster painting. That song, we sing it together. That meal, we cook it together- make a mess of your shirt, the kitchen, and maybe even the darn meal. The phone? Poor thing! Battery barely stays up because we’re burning up the lines from calls to chats to more calls to more chats. You sew yourself into the fabric of our lives and we let you. Bloody bite our lips with stars twinkling in our eyes while you’re at it. Cute, right?

heartus.3. You decide to leave our life. Hunh? What?! Leave! Really?! Reallllyyyyy??? You wave us a dandy bye while saying “get back to that life of dull monotones, no rant buddy, perfect schedules, and just you”. Fack! Why you gotta do that? Surely you realize our life before you doesn’t seem so perfect anymore? That the radio won’t stop playing THAT song? That we still have to cook THAT meal? That we now look at our phone often, thinking your heart is throbbing through it, anticipating us? That our bed now seems too big because we loved sharing it with you?

4. We curse you out, delete your contacts and evidences of you, purdah your name. But the universe is awful. So someone walks like you in a crowd and we freeze in our tracks. Or something huge happens, we pick the phone to tell you, and remember we shouldn’t. Or our nostrils flares with a tease of your perfume and dread, anxiety, fear, hope, excitement, anger dance tango on our nervous system. All at the same time. Just before we realize it’s not even you.

Some of those days we curl up, listen to music, cry. Or we hide our number, call you, and just listen to your voice, or the sound of you breathing. And you’re always fine. Always perfect. This is where we go really nuts. Wanting you desperately, sliding off the slope of sanity with thoughts and memories of you, when you couldn’t care less. When we fight with ourselves over one who won’t even love for us. Right there is where our hearts feel like bloodied pieces of piercing pain.